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'Hope and healing': Town worships after Texas school shooting

"Our objective as a church is to offer hope and healing that we understand only comes through a relationship with Jesus Christ," Senior Pastor Brad Drake said.

Church leaders wore green T-shirts with gold lettering -the colors of Santa Fe High School - that spelled out a verse from Corinthians within an outline of the state of Texas: "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed."

"She was a sweet young lady, had a style all of her own," he said. "She almost always had a new hairstyle."

At Arcadia First Baptist Church, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott hugged grieving parishioners as they arrived. Among them was Monica Bracknell, an 18-year-old senior who survived the shooting. She stopped to tell the governor that the attack should not be turned into a political battle over gun control.

Santa Fe High School students being escorted out by officers after active shooter incident

Surrounded by television cameras, photographers and reporters, she told Abbott guns were not to blame.

"People are making this into a political issue," she said she told him. "This is not a political issue. It's not a gun-law issue."

It was not the first time faith in Santa Fe has been tested with the whole country watching. In 2000, the city of 13,000 people was at the center of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that banned students from leading pregame prayer over loudspeakers.

Santa Fe High School student Leila Butler talks to ABC13 about the active shooter on campus.

The court ruled 6-3 that the school district's policy of allowing student-led prayers at campus events violated the constitutionally required separation of church and state. Justices said that giving students a public forum for prayer was effectively sponsoring the message.

Also Sunday, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called for a "hardening" of the nation's school buildings in the wake of the attack by a 17-year-old student who killed 10 people at a high school near Houston.

Patrick, a Republican, blamed a "culture of violence" and said more needs to be done to keep shooters away from students, such as restricting school entrances and arming teachers.

"When you're facing someone who's an active shooter, the best way to take that shooter down is with a gun. But even better than that is four to five guns to one," he told CNN's "State of the Union."

On ABC's "The Week," Patrick said he supports background checks for gun purchasers but stressed that "gun regulation starts at home."

The first funeral for a shooting victim was set for later Sunday. Services for 17-year-old Pakistani exchange student Sabika Sheikh were to take place at a mosque in suburban Houston.

Her father, Abdul Aziz Sheikh, described his daughter as an accomplished student who aspired to work in civil service and hoped one day to join Pakistan's foreign office. Her body is to be returned to her family in Karachi.

The suspect in Friday's attack began by firing a shotgun through an art classroom door, shattering a glass pane and sending panicked students to the entryway to block him from getting inside, witnesses said.

Dmitrios Pagourtzis fired again through the wooden part of the door and fatally hit a student in the chest. He then lingered for about 30 minutes in a warren of four rooms, killing seven more students and two teachers before exchanging gunfire with police and surrendering, officials said.

Freshman Abel San Miguel saw his friend Chris Stone killed at the door. San Miguel was grazed on his left shoulder by another volley of shots. He and others survived by playing dead.

"We were on the ground, all piled up in random positions," he said.

Galveston County Judge Mark Henry, the county's chief administrator, said he did not think Friday's attack was 30 minutes of constant shooting, and that assessment was consistent with other officials who said law enforcement contained the shooter quickly. But authorities did not release a detailed timeline to explain precisely how events unfolded.

In their first statement since the massacre, Pagourtzis' family said Saturday that the bloodshed "seems incompatible with the boy we love."

"We are as shocked and confused as anyone else by these events," said the statement, which offered prayers and condolences to the victims.

Relatives said they remained "mostly in the dark about the specifics" of the attack and shared "the public's hunger for answers."

The 17-year-old suspect has been jailed on capital murder charges. His attorney, Nicholas Poehl, said he was investigating whether his client endured any "teacher-on-student" bullying after reading reports of Pagourtzis being mistreated by football coaches.

In an online statement, the school district said it investigated the accusations and "confirmed that these reports were untrue."

Poehl said that there was no history of mental health issues with his client, though there may be "some indications of family history." He said it was too early to elaborate.

Doug Stringer, a Houston-area pastor and founder of Somebody Cares Ministries, says police have requested pastors and associate pastors be on standby to minister to the community as information is released.

"I think all of us can have different opinions or viewpoints or spiritual perspectives, and the political issue will come up again, but as ministers of the gospel, we need to be sensitive and careful," Stringer tells Charisma News. "Our job is to be a plumbline of healing and hope, just be the balm of healing during this time."

Stringer says he is working directly with Pastor John Elliot of Gulf Coast Foursquare Church, which is outside Hitchcock in Galveston County, where the shooting occurred. Stringer says Elliott is waiting on police to release ministers to head to the scene. Stringer says his organization has CISM-trained counselors at the ready when the police give the word. Elliot confirms he is with the victims' families. CISM means critical incident stress management.

In a time of crisis, Americans turn to prayer, including the highest-ranking politicians, call on God to intervene.

Here's what some of them are saying:

Please stop whatever you are doing and pray right now for #SantaFeHighSchool. Pray for the injured, first responders and everyone involved. Pray for God to intervene miraculously and for his supernatural grace and mercy to reach all affected by this terrible shooting."

When we see "senseless" acts of murder like this we have to remember that a process of thought actually made "sense" of this to the one doing the murdering. That is where evil begins - in the mind. A lie regarding how to best resolve an inner dilemma is considered, accepted, internalized and acted upon.

In this case, the lie that was believed led to the behavior murder of innocents God created and loved. Beliefs drive behaviors which is why troubled, uncomforted and deeply distressed minds are vulnerable to evil suggestion. Jesus Christ told us who is behind this mental process and product of human behavior when he called the Dark One a "liar" and "murderer from the beginning." As a former mental health professional and pastor who has interviewed thousands of deeply troubled individuals in the verge of both suicide and homicide, there is no escaping the reality that a baseline of relentless negative emotions create an inner vulnerability to homicidal suggestion.

Aggressive gun control cannot address this true dilemma at the root of incidents like today's shooting. The problem seldom exists at the level at which we finally see it and this is the case every time murder is thrust into the spotlight. Unfortunately, the predictable cycle of reactions by politicians, pundits and activists will not address the root cause which is the presence and reality of evil. All faith-filled believers should see the reality, pray for the families, and increase their spiritual ministries to the uncomforted and vulnerable among us. Christ's pervasive love and purpose in the midst of (not in the absence of) adversity redeems people from being hopeless, helpless and vulnerable to the lie that murdering another human being is their last best option.

There are several spiritual implications related to this tragedy: first, in a world of sin and sinners some people, sadly, perpetrate moral evil against their fellow man. Tragedies like this do not mean that there is no God, but this underscores how deeply all people need the heart change that comes about through a relationship with Jesus Christ. But further, it illustrates that we are not in heaven- yet. This world with all of its problems and sufferings, is in the process of God's great plan of restoration. Skeptics look at this world, or a shooting like this, and cry, " The world shouldn't be this way!" God agrees. The world shouldn't be this way. That's why Jesus came, first to pay for sin and to make our entry to heaven possible Through believing in him, and Jesus will return to finally a Schurian his eternal kingdom of righteousness and peace. This return of Christ may be very soon. In the meantime- we help usher in His peaceable Kingdom, one life at a time, One day at a time, as we share God's truth with a needy world.

The strength of youth is physical. How unspeakably tragic it is that in the classroom many of our youth or being injured and killed. The classroom should be a sacred space, Where are gods truth is presented to expand the mind and save the soul.

Mini youth are being wounded in classrooms through false teaching, and there is a high body count in terms of our raging war of worldviews (secularism Versus God, hedonism versus self control, narcissism versus selflessness, And in promotion of unspeakable immorality versus virtue)

The strength of older ages is mental, spiritual, and ethical. As we grow older (hopefully) we grow in terms of the intellect, the soul, and in depth of character. Satan is attacking our youth- and militantly secular educators and hedonistic media are helping the devil do this.

School shooters, horrible as they are, are only one example of how warfare is being raged on the souls and lives of our youth.

Today's deadly shooting at Santa Fe high school in Texas reminds us once again how pervasive evil forces are, and that evil is always lurking. In a time that children should be looking towards the end of the school year, and summer break, this tragic and heartbreaking act has now changed the trajectory of the lives of this community.

When we see the attack on our nations youth, we should realize that it is an attack, not only in one community, in one state, or one area, but ultimately upon all of us. The goal of the enemy is to kill, steal and destroy. By killing our youth, many dreams of the future are destroyed. No one knows the potential that these children who lost their lives held. They could have been the one to discover a cure to a terminal illness, future leaders or perhaps even teachers of the next generation, but sadly, their lives were ended at the hands of another student. Again we are reminded how precious life is, and we are outraged that this has happened.

We should pray. We should pray a lot. We should encourage prayer. And we should encourage action. In times like these, some people lose hope, some people become apathetic, and other people become out raged enough to make a change. As we pray, let's remember the families of these victims, and all of the students who experienced this traumatic unfolding of events, that they will be able to cope with their loss loss and even face the fears they had in that moment. Let's remember the whole community as many members reach out to those families. Let's remember the teachers and administrators who will not only deal with their own issues surrounding this, but will have to recognize and identify their students who are struggling through all of this. Let's pray for at the youth of our nation, that they find ways of releasing their pain and hurts without victimizing their colleagues. Let's pray that peace, love and hope will prevail. Paul writes in 1 Corinthian's 13 concerning the spiritual gifts, and concludes it by saying "Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love."(1 Corinthians 13:13 NLT) Let's pray it, believe it and live it.

Texas chaplain offers support, love following deadly high school shooting

Article Posted on the United Church of Christ official website written by Connie Larkman

Every fourth Thursday of the month, ministers in the Houston Association United Church of Christ come together in a clergy cluster. It's a safe, sacred space for open conversation and support. Lately, clergy from the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have been invited to join them. Tonight, the first gathering following the deadly shooting at Santa Fe High School, it's expected that much of the talk will center around what they can do for the families of the victims and the people of the community 30 miles southeast of Houston.

But for one of the faith leaders, there's a more central question: "How do we be the living instruments of Christ in a world so focused on death?"

That question was raised by the Rev. Todd Williams, who lives in the community ever changed by a teenager with a gun. He was pressed into service at Santa Fe High School on Friday May 18, asked by police to offer comfort and support to a survivor of the shooting that left eight students and two teachers dead and another dozen injured.

Williams, a chaplain in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), works for Houston Hospice. He was on the phone with a colleague, the Rev. Jasmine Quinerly, Minister of the Houston Association, South Central Conference UCC, as he was trying to get to patients through traffic backed up around the high school.

"Police were going car to car to see if the drivers were trying to get to the school to pick up students. When Todd identified himself as a chaplain, officers asked him to pull over — they had some people they wanted him to talk to," Quinerly said. "He was able to do some counseling with a custodian and the parent of a student who was shot. He told me later that while he felt very helpless at the beginning of the day, by the end of the day he felt like he had something to contribute."

Willliams said the route that took him near the school is one he never takes. He realized he was in the blockade around the high school when he saw police stopping each driver. After learning he was a minister, "officers told me 'we really could use you at the junior high,'" which was being used as a command center.

After walking by an area where a number of parents were lined up waiting for information, he passes a circle of people praying in the grass just off a parking lot. Officers led him to a mother whose daughter had been shot in the leg. Williams sat with her and comforted her as she tried to pull herself together.

"She had two younger daughters in the elementary and the junior high school that she needed to go see," he said. "She told me that she had grounded her older daughter the past weekend and taken her phone, and now she was second guessing herself for punishing her daughter. Wondering if her child wouldn't have had that last opportunity to reach out with a text to her. I told her that she was a good mother, and she was supposed to discipline her children." Williams sat with her until her husband came to collect her and their other two children to down to Galveston where their oldest was having surgery.

"Then I sat with the custodian – a really sweet lady – who has worked for the school for 17 years. She saw this boy in the hallway in a trench coat, and said she got ready to walk up to him, 'but something stopped me.' He looked back at me three times, she said. After she turned, she told me after she heard the first shot – BANG – 'I grabbed my walkie-talkie and started yelling ...POLICE, POLICE, POLICE and ran.'"

Williams paused before continuing, "She told me she heard BANG (pause) BANG (pause) BANG... as he was taking aim at his classmates and shooting."

"'These are like my children,' she told me as she cried. What mother abandons her children?" Williams said. He held her as she cried in the nurse's office. He indicated that one of the hardest parts of that morning was sitting there as authorities would come in and look people (victims) up on the computer.

Williams said he also found it difficult to persuade others not to try to rationalize what happened, "Trying to balance your faith and explain that this is not God's plan. God did not do this. It was a poor choice by a young man who is very sick. There's no reset button. You have to start from where you are at."

Williams pastored First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) near Santa Fe before he became a hospice chaplain. He's lived there several years, with a lot of friends in the neighborhood and the wider faith community in that part of Texas.

"We (the UCC and DOC clergy in the area) had a gathering to talk about gun control after the Parkland shooting. Santa Fe is the school/community that 20 years ago went to the Supreme Court to allow prayer at student events," he said. "Churches really are very strong here in our schools and in our community."

Now, he said, is a time they need to band together and follow Jesus.

"The church has to be there. Somehow we have to find our place in all of this. We have to be tellers of truth. When we are called out to be followers of Christ, we are called to be truth tellers. Whether they want to hear the truth or not, we have to speak it. This is wrong. We are violent. We need to not be afraid of offending folks. Jesus offended people all the time, so I feel like I'm in good company."

Thousands of low-wage workers, faith leaders and civil rights advocates are expected to descend on more than 30 state capitals and Washington, D.C. today to relaunch a fight against poverty, war and income inequality that first took root half a century ago.

The original 1968 Poor People's Campaign was a multicultural, multi-faith coalition planned by Martin Luther King. It brought thousands of Americans living in poverty to the national mall to demand better living conditions and higher wages.

Organizers of the new Poor People's Campaign say 50 years later, King's dream remains unfulfilled and those demands largely unmet. So demonstrators are kicking off 40 days of nonviolent direct action.

"We understand that in order to change things we have to do the rallies, we have to do organizing, we have to do voter mobilization, we have to engage in civil disobedience," says Rev. William Barber, a pastor at Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, N.C., and a national co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign.

"People will come together and put their mouths and their bodies on the line to force the nation, the media to have to see and hear the people that are impacted," says Barber, who will be in Washington to lead the demonstration at the U.S. Capitol.

The plan is to have simultaneous "waves" of action across the country calling attention to the "enmeshed evils," including systemic racism and America's war economy that organizers say are contributing to so many living in poverty, the majority of whom are white.

According to the U.S. Census, there are nearly 41 million people living in poverty, though Barber believes that number is off.

He points to research by the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank that focuses on social issues, which estimates 140 million Americans are "either poor or low-income" when items beyond income are considered, including out of pocket costs for food, clothing, and utilities.

"It's just constant juggling, figuring out what bill to pay and what not," says Terrence Wise, a fast food worker for 20 years.

He lives in Kansas City but is making the trip to Missouri's capital, Jefferson City, to protest.

As a shift manager at McDonald's, he makes $10.25 an hour. His fiancé is a home healthcare worker who makes $12 an hour. Wise says it is difficult to make ends meet while raising their three teenage daughters.

"And it's really dangerous when we are skipping meals or having to buy less food. Now you are not only struggling financially, you're possibly affecting the health of your family and your children."

Wise is a leading voice in the push to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

He hopes that the new Poor People's campaign helps make Americans more mindful of the struggles low-income people go through.

"I'm hoping it shakes America's conscience — that it makes many more aware," Wise says. "The goal is to bring more and more Americans into the movement and help make things better on all levels for everyone."

Rev. William Barber with the Poor People's Campaign speaks to a group after they prayed inside of the Capitol Rotunda in protest of the GOP tax overhaul in December.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Organizers have many demands

Organizers hope Monday's events are just the beginning.

The original 1968 Poor People's Campaign was King's vision to take the civil rights fight beyond injustices rooted in Jim Crow and to expand them to fight indignities of poverty suffered across racial lines.

King never lived to see the campaign get underway. But just weeks after his assassination, some 3,000 poor Americans came to Washington to form Resurrection City – a semi-permanent shantytown of wooden tents erected on the national mall.

The centerpiece was of that campaign was a mule train, a caravan that made its way from Marks, Miss., the poorest town, in the poorest county, in the poorest state, to Washington D.C. People lived there for six weeks.

Civil Rights icon Jesse Jackson, the founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, was appointed "city manager" of Resurrection City and wrote about it in a CNN opinion piece.

"For 42 mostly rain-drenched and mud covered days, Resurrection City was home to thousands of the poorest of the poor, doing their best to prick the conscience of America and force action against the sin of grinding poverty in the richest nation on earth."

Barber did not rule a Resurrection City-like demonstration in future actions.

For the next month and a half, each week will have a theme starting with a focus on children, women and people with disabilities living in poverty.

The new Poor People's Campaign is calling for a list of demands including changes to federal and state living wage laws that are "commensurate for the 21st century economy," a reinvestment in public housing, a repeal to the 2017 GOP-led tax plan, an end to America's militarism and reallocation of "resources from the military budget to education, health care, jobs and green infrastructure needs" and eradicating systemic racism, just to name a few.

Michael Jeffries is an associate professor of American Studies at Wellesley College in Massachusettes. He says the movement is coming at the right time, but the focus may be too expansive.

"[Barber] has a list of demands for this reinvigorated Poor People's Campaign, but it is a lengthy list," Jeffries says.

"The piece of this that remains to be seen is, can you sustain a social movement with as many issues as Barber is targeting?"

For his part, Barber says he and other organizers are building for a multi-year campaign.

"We know this nation can be better," Barber says. "We've never lost a fight for justice that we chose to fight. The only ones we have lost in history are the ones no one chose to stand up for."

Editor's note: This post has been updated to clarify the findings cited in the Institute for Policy Studies report. The report found 140 million Americans are either poor or low-wage. The original post said those 140 million are living in poverty.

Faith leaders see how minimum wage hike will improve lives

Aug. 25, 2017

Article from The Star web page

We are four leaders from the Muslim, Jewish, Sikh and Christian faiths. Earlier this year, together with 200 other religious leaders from across Ontario, we released a public statement in support of a $15 minimum wage and fair working conditions.

As faith leaders we see firsthand the stress experienced by workers who are juggling more than one part-time job. Too many of our congregants rely on food banks, despite working long hours. They worry about not spending quality time with their children or being unable to participate in community activities. The parents’ struggle for paying the bills and putting proper food on the table creates unhealthy and unnecessary family strife.

Increasingly, scheduling constraints and economic necessity are preventing our congregants from attending their houses of worship. Parents say they are anxious that their children are not finding full-time jobs, especially ones for which they have trained, and end up moving back home. Decisions to get married or start families are being postponed.

This is why we were heartened when the government tabled Bill 148: the Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act as a means of addressing workplace inequality.

First, the increase to a $15 minimum wage is long overdue. As it stands, the current general minimum wage of $11.40 leaves those working full-time more than 17 per cent below the poverty line. Bill 148 proposes to implement a $15 minimum wage by Jan. 1, 2019. We support this and hope it can be extended to all workers. There should be no further delay in ensuring that workers can earn at least enough income to rise above the poverty line.

Another crucial step forward initiated by this government is the provision in Bill 148 to extend wage equality to workers in part-time and temporary employment relative to their full-time and directly-hired counterparts. This measure has the potential to significantly address the equity wage gap for women and workers of colour who are overrepresented among the part-time workforce, often involuntarily. However, in order to be meaningful, the language in Bill 148 must be strengthened. As it stands, the language in Bill 148 provides far too much leeway to employers to use minor variations in duties to escape their obligation to provide equal pay.

While we applaud the government for taking historic first steps to ensure paid personal leave days that can be used in the case of illness, we hope it is not too late for the government to extend it further to seven paid leave days. One doesn’t have to be a doctor to know that illnesses can strike for more than two days annually. And let’s not forget that the cost of providing paid sick days pales in comparison to the costs of sick employees infecting their co-workers and creating public health risks, sending sick children to school or having to leave sick elderly parents alone at home.

Finally, we support measures to make it easier for workers to join unions so that they can, themselves, take the action necessary to bargain collectively with their employers. We support the initiatives included in Bill 148 that start to address the power imbalance between workers and employers by easing workers’ access to unionization. Still, we hope the legislation will go even further by expanding to all workers the card signing option for unionizing, regardless of the sector or occupation.

As faith leaders, we are inspired toward justice by our faith. The Qur’an affirms that the socio-economic welfare of the individual and of society depends on the degree of justice and equity in the distribution of wealth.

The Jewish sage Maimonides stated over 800 years ago, the highest form of Tzedakah — righteous living — commonly referred to as charity, is to help the disadvantaged become self sufficient.

The Sikh gurus’ teach us to fight against injustice and support the repressed by all means, for example, Kirat Karo (honest earning) and Vand Chakko (share and consume) are core teachings of Sikhism along with others.

Similarly, Christians are inspired by the biblical mandate to call for justice for all, including a warning to rich oppressors not to cheat labourers out of their wages.

For all these reasons, we are hopeful that the Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act will mark a turning point for Ontario where the working poor are empowered with the tools they need to effect change at work and in doing so, to improve their own lives and to strengthen and grow the local and spiritual communities.

Rev. Dr. Susan Eagle is a Minister at Grace United Church. Imam Abukar Mohamed is a faith leader at Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque. Rabbi Shalom Schachter is the Employment Working Group Lead of the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition. Bhupinder Singh Ubbi is the chairperson of Ontario Sikhs and Gurdwara Council.

Spearheaded by Prison Fellowship, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, National Association of Evangelicals and the Colson Center for Worldview, the Justice Declaration seeks to rally evangelicals and other Christians against mass incarceration and for alternative sentencing for criminals who don’t pose a significant threat to society

“We have a criminal justice system that does not stop crime but in many cases actually furthers crime,” ERLC President Russell Moore said in comments at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington quoted by the Washington Times, “making criminals out of those who are not yet criminals [and] ignoring those who have been victims of crime.”

“I think most of us in American life can agree our criminal justice system doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to,” Moore said. “We should fix it. And, as evangelical Christians, we should be among the first to say so.”

The 10-point declaration urges Christians to:

Affirm that the God of the Bible is a just God: justice flows from God’s very character, and the works of God’s hands are faithful and just;

Treat every human being as a person made in God’s own image, with a life worthy of respect, protection, and care;

Foster just relationships between God, fellow human beings, and property, which will lead to human flourishing;

Redouble our efforts to prevent crime by cultivating the “seedbeds of virtue,” including families, churches, neighborhoods, schools, and other sources of moral formation;

Care for the physical and emotional wounds of survivors of crime, ensure their safety, and support their meaningful participation in the justice system;

Take up the cause of the poor and vulnerable, ensuring fair access to education, economic opportunity, the social safety net, and, for those accused of crimes, the instruments of justice;

Advocate for proportional punishment, including alternatives to incarceration, that protects public safety, fosters accountability and provides opportunities to make amends;

Preach the good news of the gospel and proclaim that true freedom in Christ is available to all, including prisoners, recognizing that His atoning sacrifice covers all sin;

Invest in the discipleship of incarcerated men, women, and youth, protect their safety and human dignity, and minister to the needs of families and children with incarcerated loved ones;

Celebrate redemption in our congregations and communities by welcoming back those who have paid their debt to society, and by providing opportunities for all persons to reach their God-given potential.

“Because the good news of Jesus Christ calls the Church to advocate (or ‘be a witness’) for biblical truth and to care for the vulnerable, we, His followers, call for a justice system that is fair and redemptive for all,” says a white paper accompanying the declaration drafted by Union University professor Ben Mitchell. “The Church has both the unique ability and unparalleled capacity to confront the staggering crisis of crime and incarceration in America and to respond with restorative solutions for communities, victims, and individuals responsible for crime.”

According to the paper, nearly 2.2 million people are behind bars in the United States, 3.7 million are on probation, another 870,000 on parole and an estimated 65 million Americans have a criminal record. The rate of violent and property crimes, meanwhile, has decreased by half since the early 1990s, mostly attributable to reasons other than incarceration.

Over-incarceration disproportionally affects minorities and youth, the paper says. African Americans are significantly more likely to be arrested for a drug crime, even though rates of drug use and trafficking are roughly equal across all races, and if convicted face tougher sentences. Juvenile court caseloads have nearly tripled since 1960, even though the number of crimes committed by youth is about the same.

“As a society, we have turned to prisons as the one-size-fits-all response to public safety concerns,” Moore and Prison Fellowship CEO James Ackerman said in a blog announcing the initiative on Politico.

“Meanwhile we have allowed our centers of moral formation to erode, we have enacted draconian sentencing policies based more on fear than on evidence, and we have failed to imagine or enact effective alternatives to prison time. In an effort to secure law and order, we have lost sight of justice based on the God-given value of each human life.”

The two leaders said some churches and denominations have long sought prison reform, but the broader Christian community, and particularly evangelicals, is just now waking up to the problem. A recent Barna poll reported 87 percent of practicing Christians agreed to some degree that caring for prisoners is important based on their values.

“The time has come for Christians and churches to apply those same values to advance a justice system that is fair and redemptive for all,” Moore and Ackerman said.

Signers of the declaration include Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; David Allen, dean of the school of preaching at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; Nathan Finn, dean of the School of Theology and Missions at Union University; Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University; and John Mark Yeats, dean and associate professor of church history at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and College.

The presidents of Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College and Union University and executive directors of the Missouri Baptist Convention and Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas are among signatories. Pastors include David Crosby, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in New Orleans, and James Merritt, lead pastor at Cross Pointe Church in Duluth, Ga., and a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

While most of the names supporting the declaration identify as conservatives, the list also includes social progressives such as David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, and Ron Sider, founder and president emeritus of Evangelicals for Social Action.

A coalition of Christian ministries unveiled a declaration Tuesday, calling on all Christians to combat what they call the U.S. incarceration crisis.

Leaders from 95 Christian organizations led by Prison Fellowship, a ministry devoted to outreach and rehabilitation for imprisoned criminals, pledged Tuesday to uphold the Justice Declaration, an initiative for churches across all denominations to take a stand for reforms .

The declaration specifically called for Christians to oppose mandatory minimums, advocate for alternatives to incarceration, and for churches and ministries to care of victims of crime and engage in educational and rehabilitative services for those members of their respective communities who are incarcerated or who are transitioning from prison back into normal life.

“The Justice Declaration is an effort for us as Christians to unify around our values,” said Craig DeRoche, senior vice president, advocacy and public policy for Prison Fellowship, in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation. Christians involved in the coalition can advocate for criminal justice reform more effectually under the unifying vision provided in the declaration, Craig added.

Prison Fellowship describes the current U.S. criminal justice system as “a misguided response to crime” that has resulted in a “crisis of over-criminalization.” Nearly 2.2 million people were incarcerated in the U.S. by the end of 2015, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Prison Fellowship said that number accounts for “a quarter of the the world’s prison population.” But it isn’t just the number of people incarcerated that has inspired the church to action — it is the manner and length of prison sentences as well.

“The time has come to fix our criminal justice system,” said Dr. Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals. “And the reason is, there’s too much injustice in America’s criminal justice system.”

“We know there’s a problem. There are too many people in prison, there are racial inequities, mental illness, children without parents, high costs, and more,” Anderson added.

Anderson and others at the unveiling of the Justice Declaration called for specific reforms and listed among them drug courts, mental health courts, alternatives to incarceration, proportional sentencing, and employment training. Members of the coalition present with Anderson collectively condemned mandatory minimums as an ineffectual policy that robs judges of the ability to actually make fair judgements in criminal cases.

The coalition’s focus is as much about reforming incarceration as it is about reforming laws that place restrictions on the lives of those who have served their sentences in full, according to James Ackerman, president and CEO of Prison Fellowship. Ackerman said the current criminal justice system restricts former convicts from finding jobs and becoming productive members of society despite having already paid their debt to society.

“What we’re doing is we’re hurting ourselves,” Ackerman told TheDCNF. “We’re hurting our own communities. We’re growing government dependence. We’re contributing to the breakdown of the family in America through public policy and that, many times, those are public policies that conservatives actually advance.”

While conservatives have in the past advocated for heavier penalties for crime, the issue of criminal justice reform has bipartisan support today within Congress.

Still, the idea of pursuing harsher sentences and being “tough on crime,” remains popular with conservatives like Attorney General Jeff Sessions and President Donald Trump. Sessions announced in May that the Trump administration would repeal an Obama era directive that instructed federal prosecutors to avoid pursuing harsh mandatory minimums except in cases of violent or drug related crime. According to Sessions, pursuing harsh sentences for “the most serious, readily provable offense” is a core responsibility for prosecutors. Prosecutors may gain approval from the attorney general or assistant attorney general to vary from the mandatory minimums in certain cases.

Members of the coalition visited Capitol Hill during the afternoon to bring the Justice Declaration before Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and other members of Congress to ask for their support as well.

Religious leaders of different faiths honor victims of mass shooting, call for change

1:49 PM EST Feb 16, 2018

Article from the WWII web page written by Steve King

Religious leaders of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths gathered at Temple Emanuel in Greensboro to honor the lives of the people killed in the mass shooting in Florida and make a call for change.

GREENSBORO, N.C. —

Religious leaders of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths gathered at Temple Emanuel in Greensboro to honor the lives of the people killed in the mass shooting in Florida and make a call for change.

The memorial service was held on Thursday night. Rabbis, pastors and an imam spoke at the event and prayed.

“I woke up this morning and I really felt that God had commanded us to come together as various religious faith traditions to bring forth this issue and I also feel that the souls of 17 people who were murdered also commands us to say, ‘Do something to try to prevent this from happening,” said Rabbi Fred Guttman of Temple Emanuel.

“Whether or not it can be totally prevented I don’t know, but we can do things to prevent things from happening as much so there’s a sense of religious obligation to honor their memories.”

Religious leaders who spoke at the memorial urged people in attendance to contact their state and federal lawmakers in order to ask them to enact laws that could prevent mass shootings from happening again.

Greensboro Police Chief Wayne Scott and Guilford County Schools officials also spoke at the memorial service. They talked about the need for everyone in the community to work together in order for gun violence to end. While Chief Scott says that while anyone with information about criminal activity need to contact police in order to help end gun violence, law enforcement is only part of the answer.

Not an Act of God: Ministries Respond to Surge in Mass Shootings

Chaplains from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) arrived in Parkland, Florida, within hours of Wednesday’s school shooting that killed at least 17 teens and faculty members.

This is the fifth deployment this year for the ministry’s rapid response team, trained to provide emotional and spiritual support amid crises.

Each 2018 deployment has been gun-related.

“Our hearts break for the parents who sent their children to school, and are now with them in the hospital, or living a parent’s worst nightmare,” said Jack Munday, international director of the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team, in a statement.

“So many lives have been forever changed by this evil act. As we pray for the students, faculty, and families, we know God can bring hope and comfort, in Jesus Christ, in the darkest hours.”

At times of tragedy, Christian churches and ministries rally to remind survivors of a God who the Psalms tell us “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

BGEA president and CEO Franklin Graham first formed the rapid response team in the wake of 9/11, and its chaplains have since responded to hundreds of crisis events, including last year’s major shootings in Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Of the 26 shootings that BGEA chaplains have responded to in the US, more than half have taken place since 2014—including the 5 so far this year. Gun violence now makes up about a tenth of the incidents the rapid response team has addressed in America over its history.

Last month, the BGEA sent 14 chaplains to Benton, Kentucky, where they set up outside a barbeque restaurant to hear from and pray with families impacted by a January 23 shooting that killed two high school students. The ministry currently has two teams deployed to respond to recent police shootings.

In many cases, BGEA chaplains partner with local churches to reach out to community members and ensure they have ongoing support even after the team leaves.

Parkridge Church, which met for seven years at the high school where yesterday’s Parkland shooting took place, has teamed up with fellow churches in the community to host a vigil today.

“I’m praying that our churches, our church specifically, and other Bible-believing churches in our area, that we will point people to Jesus,” pastor Eddie Bevill said in an interview with CT blogger Ed Stetzer.

“He’s the only hope we have. He’s the only thing that provides a future. He’s the only one who can bring peace where there is nothing but lostness and struggle and anger and fury and confusion … We just want to see Christ in the forefront of all of this.”

The Humanitarian Disaster Institute (HDI) at Wheaton College reflects the new scope of disaster ministry, which now includes responding to mass shootings alongside the more traditional relief efforts that surround natural disasters.

Several Baptist churches in the Parkland area have been involved in the initial wave of grief and outreach to the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, particularly those with students in their congregations who attend the school.

Less than 10 minutes away, Church by the Glades lost one member of their church and another was injured, the Baptist Press reported. The church’s lead pastor, David Hughes, raised the question: “Do we let fear and cruelty, violence and hatred win, or do we continue to fight against the darkness and continue to bring the message of hope and light that comes through Jesus Christ?”

With every shooting, Americans become more vocal in their heartbreak and outrage, demanding more from people of faith than blanket statements about “thoughts and prayers” with whatever city suffered the latest incident. Questions inevitably arise over “where was God during the tragedy?”

“People will be turning to Christian leaders for guidance in the aftermath of the senseless violence that happened yesterday,” said Jamie Aten, HDI founder and executive director.

“One of the biggest challenges pastors will face is the pressure to explain why someone would do something like this. Yet, no answer will take away the pain and heartache,” he said. “What will be most helpful to those struggling is to meet them in their suffering by creating space for lament, providing comfort, encouraging community, and reminding others of the hope we have in Christ.”

Such efforts have been shown to reduce the severity or longevity of trauma following a mass shooting.

Even Christian leaders far from Parkland are grasping for an adequate way to address the latest attack, which happened to take place on Valentine’s Day and on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.

“My heart, thoughts, and prayers are for and with the families and friends of shooting victims in Parkland, Florida,” tweeted Johnathan Alvarado, a Pentecostal pastor in Atlanta. “This tragedy on Ash Wednesday reminds us of how marred and diseased we are by sin. I'm still wearing ashes on my head and heart.”

During an anniversary ceremony at the Vatican, Francis repeated his insistence that capital punishment is “inadmissible” under any circumstance. He said the death penalty violates the Gospel and amounts to the voluntary killing of a human life, which “is always sacred in the eyes of the creator.”

that God is a Father “who always waits for the return of the son who, knowing he has erred, asks forgiveness and begins a new life.”

“No one, therefore, can have their life taken from them, nor the possibility of a moral and existential redemption that goes back in favor of the community.”

All news accounts are making it clear that Pope Francis is teaching that “It’s necessary to repeat that no matter how serious the crime, the death penalty is inadmissible because it attacks the inviolable dignity of the person.”

After St. John Paul II’s homily on January 27, 1999 in St. Louis offering a new understanding of the use of the death penalty, the Catechism was updated to reflect this new teaching. It is reasonable to conclude that the Catechism of the Catholic Church may soon undergo another revision in this area to reflect that the death penalty is never a moral option and should be abolished.

Religious groups demand Congress take action on gun violence

Fifty religious organizations sent a letter to congressional leaders Thursday demanding lawmakers take action on gun violence in the wake of the mass shooting at a Texas church last week.

The groups, which make up the Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence Coalition, called for Congress to “take immediate action to curb the onslaught of gun violence plaguing our nation.”

The coalition noted shootings that have taken place at houses of worship in recent years, including the 2015 church shooting in Charleston, S.C., and the shooting at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wis., in 2012.

“It is horrifying that innocents were massacred in a house of worship once again, a terrifying reality for all people of faith in this country who believe that their congregations are sanctuaries of peace, safety, life, and love,” the letter reads.

The groups urged Congress to take action to close loopholes that allow domestic violence offenders to own and buy guns, implement a universal background check system and pass an assault weapons ban, among other demands.

“We would welcome the opportunity to discuss our coalition’s legislative priorities with you. All people in our beloved country deserve to feel safe in their houses of worship and their communities; inaction is immoral and wrong,” the letter reads.

“The message that we deliver today is urgent – lives are on the line and there is no time to waste.”

Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence is composed largely of liberal-leaning religious organizations.

The group formed in the aftermath of the 2011 Tucson shooting, which left then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) severely wounded and six others dead, and has partnered with other gun control groups like the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, according to its website.

The letter comes as Democrats demand Congress take action to prevent gun violence after a mass shooting at a Texas church last week left 26 people dead.

Charlottesville congregations once divided by segregation now chart healing path together

October 18, 2017

David Paulsen

Article from the Episcopal Church web page

[Episcopal News Service] Grace Episcopal Church in Lexington, Virginia, has begun growing into its new name. Its website homepage is updated. The stationery is new. And perhaps more consequentially, the annual stewardship appeal has been sent to members under the new church name.

A month ago, the vestry voted to remove Robert E. Lee from the name of the church he once attended, changing it from R.E. Memorial Church back to its previous Grace. That move ended two years of sometimes tense debate over the Confederate general’s legacy, both as a prominent member of the congregation’s past and a symbol of racial hatred in contemporary America.

At least one couple has formally left the congregation in protest of the name change. At the same time, the congregation faces a change in leadership: The Rev. Tom Crittenden announced this month he plans to step down as rector after Nov. 5.

Despite the recent upheaval, some parish leaders who had disagreed over whether to remain as R.E. Lee Memorial now express a mutual desire to move forward together as Grace Episcopal.

“There’s still some hurt feelings, but [the congregation] seems to be pulling together,” senior warden Woody Sadler told Episcopal News Service this week by phone.

Sadler had long opposed the name change and voted against it Sept. 18, partly because the vestry hadn’t polled the full congregation.

The vestry’s 7-5 vote adopted a change recommended in April by a Discovery and Discernment Committee of vestry members and parishioners. A more recent and direct catalyst for the Lexington vestry’s decision was the Aug. 14 violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. Hate groups had gathered in Charlottesville to “unite the right” in support of a Lee statue that the city had slated for removal. Clashes with anti-racism counter-protesters left one of the counter-protesters dead.

Doug Cumming, one of the Lexington vestry members who supported removal of Lee from the church’s name, said he thinks resolving that issue last month has put the congregation on the path to spiritual renewal.

“We’re coming back together. We’re now in a period of real healing and reconciliation,” Cumming said in an interview with ENS, and he already senses that people who had shied away from the church during the debate over the name have started returning to Sunday services.

The changes have been difficult, though, for those who felt the congregation’s identity was closely tied to Lee.

“I think it just hurts some people so much to see the name changing and to see things happening so fast,” Cumming said.

As fast as change is coming, it is hardly complete. The website that advertises services at Grace Episcopal Church is still hosted on the domain releechurch.org. A new domain is in the works, Cumming said.

The sign in front of R.E. Lee Memorial Church in Lexington, Virginia. Photo: Doug Cumming

Grace is the name on the outdoor sign listing worship times and on a banner advertising an upcoming bazaar. But the main sign out front has not yet been replaced and still welcomes passersby to “R.E. Lee Memorial Church.” Cumming, as chair of the church’s History Committee, presented the lowest bid on a replacement sign to the vestry at its most recent meeting, Oct. 16. The cost will be $930.

Sadler said he signed off on that expense the following day. The new sign should be installed in a few weeks.

Deeper change in the congregation may take time and require more than a new name and sign. Crittenden is personally well liked, Cumming said, but his resignation reflected the congregation’s desire for new leadership as it looks to the future. Its Discovery and Discernment Committee’s report identified “a loss of confidence in the ability of the current rector to lead the parish forward.”

Diocese of Southwest Virginia Bishop Mark Bourlakas met with the congregation, vestry and Crittenden in the months leading up to Crittenden’s decision to resign, and Bourlakas plans to attend the November vestry meeting to discuss calling an interim rector while Grace recruits someone new to the role permanently.

The Discovery and Discernment Committee also singled out the vestry as part of the leadership “vacuum” in the congregation, including but not limited to its role in the debate over the church’s name. The committee recommended the vestry focus on coordinating its vision, mission and long-range planning and communicate better with parishioners.

The vestry will have several new faces leading those efforts starting in January. The congregation on Oct. 15 elected five new vestry members to the 12-member body, out of 10 people who were interested in serving, an unusually high number, Cumming said. (He was one of the vestry members who chose not to return when their terms expire at the end of this year.)

The new vestry members appear to support the name change, Cumming said, but it is more difficult to gauge the change’s effect on the larger congregation. Cumming sensed increased attendance since the name change, due to the return of families who had stopped attending. Sadler, on the other hand, said he hadn’t noticed Sunday attendance swell in the past month.

The Oct. 15 service was well attended, but it also was unique: The congregation combined its 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. services for a special joint service that will be repeated every three months.

“There’s a lot of reconciliation and healing that has to go on,” said Bourlakas, who had encouraged changing the church name. He told ENS he is pleased by the progress. “People seem to be trying to work together. I know it hasn’t pleased everybody but there seems to be some acceptance and voices for moving forward.”

Cumming, despite voting to remove Lee from the church name, doesn’t think the church is erasing history. His committee is discussing other ways of highlighting Lee’s historic role.

While serving in Lexington as president of Washington College, later renamed Washington and Lee University, the former Confederate general spent the last five years of his life, until his death in 1870, helping the struggling congregation survive. There is no record, however, of why the congregation chose to rename the church for Lee in 1903.

One suggestion received by the History Committee was to rename the parish hall after Lee, but Cumming said the committee also is looking for ways to highlight other historical figures’ ties to the church.

An interpretative historical marker might include info on Lee, but also on Jonathan Daniels, a civil rights worker who was killed in 1965 while saving the life of a black teenage girl. Daniels attended R.E. Lee Memorial Church while a student at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington. He was class valedictorian when he graduated in 1961.

– David Paulsen is an editor and reporter for the Episcopal News Service.

Removal of Robert E. Lee from church’s name was just start of healing for Virginia congregation

[Diocese of Southwestern Virginia — Lexington, Virginia] More than 150 community members crowded a middle school cafeteria in Lexington, Virginia, Sept. 13 to hear a lecture on race and civil discourse presented by Wornie Reed, director of the Race and Social Policy Research Center at Virginia Tech and professor of sociology and Africana studies there.

Reed’s lecture covered his work studying racial bias by police in Montgomery County, Virginia, as well as his proposed framework for discussing race.

“There is a great need to have productive conversations about race and … quite often these dialogues are uncomfortable,” Reed said. In fact, he argued, merely talking about racism is “supremely unproductive.”

Instead, Reed called for a focus on the institutionalized practice of racism. Using such an approach means “we can discuss these issues quite freely and across racial lines,” he said.

The talk was the first of a three-part series hosted by the diocese entitled “Pursuing the Beloved Community: A Continuing Conversation on Race.”

Plans to facilitate a conversation on racial division in southwest Virginia began after the last General Convention when then newly elected Presiding Bishop Michael Curry announced he would make racial reconciliation a focus of his term. The release in May of this year of the church’s “Becoming Beloved Community” resources, as well as the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, reinforced the importance of these events.

Southwestern Virginia Bishop Mark Bourlakas recently told the diocese that diocesan staff had planned a series of events across the diocese on the topic of racial reconciliation. “The tragic events in Charlottesville have strengthened our resolve to be the hands and feet of Christ in our communities, urging one another onward in the mission of God,” he wrote. “The work of reconciliation is very hard, very necessary, and our duty as followers of Jesus Christ.”

The white supremacist rally and violence in Charlottesville Aug. 12 brought more attention to the issue of racial reconciliation and the rise in racist rhetoric in the past several years. The debate is not only about city parks and statues, but also the sanctuaries of churches across the United States.

One such church is R.E. Lee Memorial Episcopal Church in Lexington, which has been in a heated debate for two years over the future of the parish’s name.

Curry highlighted the new urgency that has emerged following the events in Charlottesville in a meeting with Episcopalians in that city last week. “The bitter, painful reality of what we have called and known to be racism, which never went away, was like a scab was ripped off Aug. 12, and the whole country saw it,” he said during his visit.

This harsh reality was the focus of Reed’s lecture as he appealed to the facts of institutionalized racism over a conversation about individual actions.

“There is a widely held assumption that individual prejudice leads to racism. … But where does prejudice come from? No one is born prejudiced,” Reed said. “I would argue that we have racist orientations, activities and policies [in this country] that lead people to think a certain way.”

The next lecture, which will focus on racial profiling and police use of force, is scheduled for Oct. 25 at the Northwest Community Center in Roanoke, Virginia. More information will be posted here.

[Episcopal News Service] Rahson Johnson stood behind the microphone, in front of the ornate altar at St. Philips Episcopal Church in Harlem, the northern Manhattan neighborhood in New York City. He looked at more than 200 people filling the pews on the evening of Oct. 24, recalling two critical moments as a 16-year-old growing up in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.

The first critical moment: His friends told him to get the gun from his apartment.

He did, and they played around, doing nothing, really. The police came by. On instinct, Johnson ran, so he was chased. He tossed the gun in a flower pot and ran more. Police tackled him, beat him up and arrested him, telling him he was no good, even though he turned out not to be the suspect they were looking for.

Regardless of his noncriminal past, Johnson fit the description.

Attendees heard and offered all sorts of perspectives at the evening’s #KnowJusticeHarlem, a film and interactive discussion brought by the Fit the Description series organized by the Circles of Support Advisory board, which is comprised of formerly incarcerated people, including Johnson. Circles of Support is a local Harlem re-entry partnership that cultivates leadership among the formerly incarcerated, their families and faith leaders to strengthen communities.

The second critical moment Johnson recalled at the event was the day he returned from a harrowing seven days at Riker’s Island Prison Complex. Those same neighborhood kids put another gun in his hand. What did he do? Johnson took it. Not long afterward, Johnson was jailed again, this time for 23 years, on armed robbery charges.

“Did I deserve to be put in prison? Yes,” Johnson told the crowd. “Did I deserve to be treated by the police the way I was? Probably not.”

Maybe if there was more support for people re-entering society after their prison release, Johnson’s repeated criminal activity might not have happened. Maybe if the relationships, procedure and accountability between police of any color and black men in particular were better, the first incident wouldn’t have happened, or the situation wouldn’t have escalated to the point of arrest.

These points were worth a deep-dive conversation.

“Think of the ways people have assumed you have fit the description, and think of the ways you fit others into a description,” discussion moderator Dawn Jewel Fraser told the crowd. Later, she said: “We realize this conversation is only a first step.”

Left to right: Rashon Johnson, the Rev. Matt Heyd, Lamont Bryant, Thomas Edwards, the Rev. Mary Fouke and Barbara Barron participated in the Fit the Description interactive film series and discussion Oct. 24, at St. Philips Episcopal Church in Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City’s Manhattan borough. Photo: Angela James

Many of the children and adults who attended the event have been directly impacted by the criminal justice system and mass incarceration. Several of the men from the film were there to speak to the gathering. In the film, eight men — four black police officers and four black civilians from New York City — met for the first time, face-to-face, to talk about the relationship between police and black men, sharing stories of their experiences, feelings and motivations behind their actions.

Many Episcopal churches are engaged in re-entry programs in which the mentors and mentees serve and change each other for the better, she said. Also, the Episcopal Church is about to put together an advisory group on criminal justice ministries to help more churches figure out how to engage in these efforts.

“This is not only a chance to talk about Beloved Community, but to act on it,” Spellers said. “Unfortunately, our church has benefitted so much from systems of injustice and oppression. We have a special responsibility to dismantle those systems of privilege.”

Left to right: Thomas Edwards, Clifton Hollingsworth Jr., the Rev. Stephanie Spellers and Harold Thomas participated in the Fit the Description interactive film series and discussion Oct. 24, at St. Philips Episcopal Church in Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City’s Manhattan borough. Photo: Amy Sowder/Episcopal News Service

The Oct. 24 program received support also from the J.C. Flowers Foundation, the Episcopal Charities of New York and a network of seven Episcopal churches in Manhattan committed to the kind of criminal justice reform that’s rooted in the lived realities of actual people with the highest amounts of police contact. The J.C. Flowers Foundation works with a wide range of partners to solve critical health and social problems affecting hard-to-reach communities. The foundation looks for communities often overlooked by traditional donors.

Founded by Episcopalians Anne and Chris Flowers, the organization was born after they saw the malaria epidemic up close on an Africa trip in 2004 and then started the highly successful Nets for Life program, said Susan Lassen, the foundation’s executive director. Then the Flowerses used the same model to involve churches and communities in Harlem, training people and allowing them to do the work to help themselves. “It’s a unique way of looking at sustainable change,” Lassen said.

Left to right: Dawn Jewel Fraser, Clifton Hollingsworth Jr., Harold Thomas, Thomas Edwards and Rahson Johnson participated in an interactive panel discussion at the Fit the Description interactive film series and discussion Oct. 24, at St. Philips Episcopal Church in Harlem. Photo: Amy Sowder/Episcopal News Service

Change happens on a church-by-church basis.

St. Philips Church has been working on improving post-incarceration re-entry from a number of different angles, said the Rev. Chloe Breyer, associate priest at St. Philips, as well as executive director of the Interfaith Center of New York.

Volunteers provide drinks, snacks and “cheerful conversation” for people checking in with their parole officers at the Harlem Community Justice Center. They often have to wait for hours. Missing parole is a common reason men get sent back to prison, and men 18 to 35 years old are at the highest risk of becoming repeat offenders, she said.

“Our pastors can be a listening ear and offer spiritual support, but not from a sectarian point of view,” Breyer said. She pointed to an evaluation of the Harlem center’s Reentry Court, which revealed a 19 percent reduction in re-convictions among participants three years following their release from prison.

St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Manhattanville hosts support network meetings for formerly imprisoned folks, offering resources for people with no place to live, no food or no medicine, plus community gardening and movie nights. The congregation has members who were formerly incarcerated.

“There’s a need in the community to get support right after they get out of prison,” said the Rev. Mary Foulke, rector of St. Mary’s. “The cards are stacked against them, and we as a church can help make things easier for them.”

— Amy Sowder is a special correspondent for the Episcopal News Service and a freelance writer and editor based in Brooklyn.

Article from the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) General Church web page

From General Minister and President Terri Hord Owens; Julia Brown Karimu, president of Division of Overseas Ministries and co-executive of Global Ministries; Lori Tapia, interim national pastor for the Central Pastoral Office for Hispanic Ministries; Vy Nguyen, executive director of Week of Compassion; and Angel Rivera- Agosto, area executive for Latin America/Caribbean, Global Ministries

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. (Selah). – Psalm 46:1-3

As our brothers and sisters across the Caribbean and Mexico have experienced devastation of their homelands through recent hurricanes and earthquakes, we join as Christians together to commit our support for immediate relief and long-term recovery. Many Disciples in the United States and Canada have family and friends in the areas affected by Hurricane Maria and the earthquake in Mexico. We have been praying fervently for those whose lives have been disrupted, for those who have lost loved ones in the storm or earthquake, and for those who now face great uncertainty in the aftermath of these disastrous events. Although the loss of electrical power and cell phone service has made communication difficult, we want to affirm our commitment to stand with those in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Cuba and the Caribbean with support, resources and prayers.

Given our close relationship with the Iglesia Cristiana (Discipulos de Cristo) in Puerto Rico, several ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada are collaborating to come alongside communities in Puerto Rico who have endured the ravages of Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Our Week of Compassion is in touch with our ecumenical partners and coordinating between Division of Overseas Ministries (DOM)/Global Ministries, the Pension Fund of the Christian Church, as well as the Central Pastoral Office for Hispanic Ministries. Throughout the Caribbean and Mexico, Week of Compassion and the Division of Overseas Ministries/Global Ministries are working with both international and ecumenical partners who are responding to the needs of affected communities. It is still too early to know the full extent of the damage caused by the hurricane and earthquake, but once our partners are able to assess the damage, we will work with them to provide assistance–both for immediate relief, and, most importantly, for long-term recovery to help rebuild communities.

With so many facing uncertainty amidst horrific loss of loved ones, homes and the daily necessities of life, we offer prayers of comfort and peace. We are reminded that nothing can separate us from the love of God, including hardship or distress. (Romans 8:35-39). In the midst of our distress, we take comfort in the steadfast love of God: “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, [God’s] mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in [God].'” (Lamentations 3:21-24).

TAKE ACTION NOW!!!! Oppose Discrimination and Protect Refugees

on July 4, 2017

Article from the official webpage of the African Methodist Episcopal Church

President Trump has repeatedly denigrated our nation’s values by repeatedly attempting to grind refugee resettlement to a halt and discriminate against travelers because of their ethnicity or religion. After several lawsuits were filed to stop Trump’s refugee and Muslim ban executive orders, the Supreme Court decided to allow the administration to limit the entry of refugees, as well as travelers from Syria, Iran, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and Sudan, to those who have a “bona fide relationship with a person or entity” in the United States.The definition of “bona fide relationship” is broad, and yet, the administration is interpreting this ruling to discount many family relationships and disregard the relationships refugees already have with U.S. resettlement agencies. Trump’s interpretation not only violates the Supreme Court’s order, but also flies in the face of our notions of fairness, justice, and hospitality. Your Senators and Representatives need to hear that you call on them to do everything in their power to hold the administration accountable and recognize the relationships that refugees clearly have with U.S.-based resettlement agencies. Only then can we keep our promises to refugees we have promised to resettle.

Sample Script: “I’m your constituent from [CITY/TOWN], and I support refugee resettlement. I strongly oppose President Trump’s refugee and Muslim ban executive order. I urge you to do everything in your power to ensure the administration complies with the Supreme Court decision and recognizes the relationships that refugees have with U.S.-based resettlement agencies. I ask that you urge the administration to change this interpretation, which clearly violates the court order.”

Please also share a personal story about why refugee resettlement is important to you, your community, etc. Let them know the specific ways that refugees contribute and are welcomed into your community.

Resettlement agencies have already provided assurances to the U.S. State Department to resettle, by name, an additional 26,000 people this year. Many have church co-sponsors who have already signed documents stating their commitment to help these refugees rebuild their lives. All of this clearly demonstrates a formal relationship with a U.S. entity.

Disastrous consequences of the first and second executive orders against refugees are still reverberating around the world. This is not who we are as a nation. We cannot turn our backs on the refugees we pledged to welcome. As Americans and as people of faith, we must stand together and urge Congress to do everything they can to ensure the executive order is rescinded.

We need all hands on deck – please spread the word and have everyone you know share this alert!

Thank you for all your work and support!

Jen SmyersDirector of Policy and AdvocacyImmigration and Refugee ProgramChurch World

Rev. Traci Blackmon: It is up to US to stop gun violence

October 02, 2017Written by Traci D. Blackmon

Article from the United Church of Christ General Church webpage

Truly God is good to the upright, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant; I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Psalm 73:1-3

"The worst mass shooting in modern American history."

We’ve heard these words before. We’ve heard them far too often only to have the next mass shooting supersede the former. During the night, people attending an outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas unexpectedly found themselves assaulted by gunfire from the 32nd floor of the Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. Early reports indicate this violence is the work of a lone, 64-year-old, white gunman equipped with multiple assault weapons. It is too early to know whether we will ever have knowledge of his provocation for this deadly act. It is too early to know what life experiences he may have had, or what propaganda he may have absorbed, that might have moved him from hateful thought to hateful action.

But what we do already know, even if we refuse to admit it, is that this lone gunman was able to execute at least 59 people, and wound over 500 more, because our nation’s absolute refusal to enact responsible gun legislation provides easy access to high-powered assault weapons used to kill human beings.

What we also know is that soon the predictable rhetoric exhorting the false notion that guns do not kill people will begin again, and gun lobbyists will line up to offer condolences for lives lost without offering proposals of any comprehensive gun reform to lessen the probability of this type of massacre ever happening again. What we know is we will spend our time analyzing the mental health of the shooter while excusing the moral decay of this nation.

In Psalm 73, the psalmist cries out for relief from oppressors while simultaneously acknowledging the temptation to stray from those things we know to be morally just. In this Psalm we are reminded of the necessity to heed the teaching and the love of the Lord, lest we become adorned with pride and clothed in violence.

My heart weeps for those who are waking this morning to notifications of the deaths and injuries of loved ones needlessly gunned down last night. My heart weeps for a nation that will once again gather to mourn the dead without committing to the deeper work of sensible gun reform. May the groaning pains of this nation lift us up from our praying knees to call on our policymakers to demand legislative changes to gun laws in this country. May we stop wringing our hands in helpless disbelief and satiating our hearts with false narratives of lone gunmen. Because until we do all we can to prevent such mass shootings, no gunman acts alone. From Sandy Hook to Texas to Charleston to Virginia Tech to Pulse to Las Vegas…Lord, hear our cries and compel us to act.

Here are eight actions that you can begin today:

1. Start Planning a vigil to #EndGunViolence.

The victims, survivors and the families impacted by gun violence are often forgotten. Therefore, the Newtown Foundation, in partnership with Faiths United Against Gun Violence, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Everytown Survivor Network, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, Organizing for Action, States United to Prevent Gun Violence, St Marks Episcopal Church and Women's March on Washington will host the annual national vigil service of mourning and loving remembrance for all who have fallen victim to the ongoing epidemic of gun violence in America on December 6th and nationwide vigils/events from December 6-17th.

Please complete this form to host a vigil or an event in your town or city and our partners at the Newtown Foundation will send you the 2017 National Vigil Tool Kit to facilitate your planning and to coordinate our collective gun violence prevention message.

Consider coming to DC to attend the national vigil service to support the families and survivors impacted by gun violence and renew our pledge to fight for gun violence prevention. Please reserve your seat here.

Direct family members of victims and survivors of gun violence from all 50 states are invited to attend the national vigil service on December 6th at St Marks Episcopal Church. There are travel stipends available. Please forward this registration form to families and survivors who may be interested.

2. Call your Congressional representative.

Find out who represents you in Congress, then let them know that you are a constituent, that you want to make gun reform a priority and that you expect to see them take strong action on common sense gun reforms like legislation to strengthen the background check process and state/federal cooperation improvement needed to make it more effective.

A word about Sutherland Springs, TX, shootings

Article from the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) General Church Webpage

From General Minister and President Terri Hord Owens

28 I go about in sunless gloom; I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

31 My lyre is turned to mourning, and my pipe to the voice of those who weep. Job 30:28, 31(NRSV)

How long will we allow high capacity guns to slaughter human beings? The lessons of Las Vegas, Orlando, Sandy Hook, Columbine – all are lost on us. And now 26 more people murdered in church on a Sunday morning. And in a quiet, small community of 400 near San Antonio. Mothers, fathers, children.

We don’t yet know why the gunman chose to attack in that place at that time, but we do know he had one thing in common with the shooters in all those other cities and towns that suffered mass casualties. He had access to a high-capacity gun.

At the 2015 General Assembly in Columbus, the Disciples gathered there passed a resolution “call(ing) on members of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) to demand of their elected officials that gun safety laws be enacted as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, including: an assault weapon ban, the elimination of the gun show and private-party loophole by requiring mandatory background checks and waiting periods before all firearm purchases, a ban on high capacity magazines, and requiring federally enforced safe firearm storage.”

There is a distinction here. These high capacity weapons are not tools for hunting game. These weapons were developed to inflict the greatest damage possible. There is no reason that such guns should be available to civilians.

Church – we are a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world. One way to address the destruction is to find ways to move the conversation forward in our communities and our legislatures. Having those tough conversations about how to keep our children safe is a step toward healing the fragmentation. As Representative John Lewis said today, it is not enough to mourn and pray. We must act.

LET’S FACE RACE – LEGACY OF THE MOTHER EMANUEL 9 (A Call to Action)

January 4, 2017

Article from the official website of the African Methodist Episcopal Church

We are thankful that the Charleston, South Carolina jury rendered a just decision in the case of the heinous and cowardly murder of the nine martyrs of Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on June 17, 2015. We honor the faith walks of Pastor Clementa C. Pinckney (41), Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd (54), Susie Jackson (87), Ethel Lee Lance (70), Depayne Middleton-Doctor (49), Tywanza Sanders (26), Daniel Simmons (74), Sharonda Coleman-Singleton (45), and Myra Thompson (59). Today, as we await the sentencing phase, let us remember it is a wake-up call for all Americans. What are we waking up for and waking up to do?

When we reflect on the martyrdom of the Mother Emanuel 9 in bible study, we hear the voice of an Early Church Father, Tertullian, declaring that the blood of the martyrs seeds the growth of the church and the expansion of the faith. Just as Jesus was unjustly crucified on the cross, these brothers and sisters were brutally murdered while studying the word of God and welcoming a stranger into the house of God. They modeled for us the rare and exemplary qualities of love, acceptance, and grace. They modeled Christ in word and deed. These martyrs lived and died for, and with their faith. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., they believed that unearned suffering is redemptive. They demonstrated that love is stronger than hate; and that faith is stronger than fear; and that life triumphs over death, says Bishop McKinley Young, Senior Bishop of the AME Church.

That sentiment and the challenge is echoed by Bishop Vashti M. McKenzie, President of the General Board of the AME Church, who declares, “And I am hoping that when all of those who believe in humanity and all of those who are driven by love and not hate come together, we can make this nation truly a model for the world. For us to speak one thing globally and live another thing locally, is a contradiction and ultimate in hypocrisy. But I believe the nation is ready now – that our local declarations will be able to stand up to global inspection – that in this country, we will demand that everybody is treated equally.”

Bishop Frank M. Reid III, Chair of the Social Action Commission, continues, “There lingers the unmistakable need for this nation to move beyond guilt or shame about racial injustice in America to action that will eradicate its consequences and its genesis from our hearts. We declare that healing is the order of the day. That means changing the hearts and minds of the people who have been conditioned to dehumanize/denigrate/discriminate against someone solely based on the color of his/her skin or family origin. That means being open for a cure from unbearable pain, and willingness to bind our wounds to forgive offenders and offer a second chance.”

The African Methodist Episcopal Church believes we must move beyond talk, we must act. So, the question: what is next?

“The Mother Emanuel Nine and so many others who have died or been marginalized and suffered because of race deserve to have us create a new paradigm. Especially as we await the sentencing trial of the Charleston shooter, let us pledge anew that we cannot have their lives taken, simply to be a footnote in history. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, which celebrated 200 years of liberation and social justice ministry in July of 2016, invites each of you to invest in this eradication process,” concludes Bishop John F White, President of the AME Council of Bishops.

There are several things we can do together. Please see below for Initiatives in which you can play a role. Sign up and let us know you will partner with us. You may also want to inform us of other steps you will take so that the AME Church might support you. Let’s take action! Let us stand together!

2017 – AMEs On the Hill – Washington, DC

The A.M.E. Church will visit Capitol Hill to urge the members of the 115th Congress to remember the value of every life and their obligation to do everything possible to protect us. Join with us as we present a package for actions entitled, “And Justice for All,” to the bipartisan Congressional leadership.

Advocacy – At all levels of governing, we must advocate for legislation that will require background checks and registration to purchase fire arms.

Community Engagement – We will continue to outline strategies where the nation can Act on Race. These will include support for public education, elimination of mass incarceration, reform of gun laws, eradication of poverty, and a living wage. In addition, visit elected officials in your local communities in multi-racial, multi-cultural, inter-generational, inter-religious and ecumenical delegations modeling the diversity of our nation. Use old fashioned tools like phone calls and letter writing. Share the urgency of NOW; no more deferral or acquiescing to powerful lobbies.

Linking- Initiate a social media campaign. Be relentless in reminding your network that there is work to be done to achieve equality for all. Tweet, Post and Share daily. Begin with #AndJusticeForAll.

For more information about the Initiative and partnership, go to www.ame-sac.org or call 213-494-9493.

On Behalf of the African Methodist Episcopal Church,Its Council of Bishops –

Council of Bishops

Statement RE: Violence in Charlottesville, Virginia

April 12, 2017

Article from the official webpage of the African Methodist Episcopal Church

The Council of Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church condemns the violence that exploded in Charlottesville, Virginia. The “Unite the Right” march was sponsored by white supremacists, white nationalists, and the Ku Klux Klan to protest the removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee. It was responded to by counter protestors.

The result was a face-off between the two groups marked with punching, kicking, water bottle hurling, racial taunting and even the deployment of chemical sprays. A car plowed into a group of peaceful protesters killing one woman and injuring about 19 others. The driver, James Alex Fields is being held on charges including second degree-murder. A helicopter monitoring the rally later crashed killing two Virginia State Troopers.

There are those who argue that white nationalists have the right to free speech, and in a democracy, we support their right. But what was on display before the nation yesterday was more than free speech. It was an unruly event designed to intimidate and provoke violence.

In a word, what happened yesterday was a hate crime and domestic terrorism. It was demonic and does not represent what the United States claims it stands for.

We are also disappointed with the response of President Donald Trump. Let us be clear, this is not a partisan issue, this is a matter of failed leadership. President Trump while condemning hatred and violence, claimed it was on “many sides”, but it wasn’t. This violence was initiated by the white supremacist. We have heard President Trump specifically call out Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Senator Mitch McConnell and come down hard on others, but he did not explicitly condemn white nationalist, supremacist or the Ku Klux Klan. It must be noted that hate crimes have increased since President Trump’s campaign and inauguration.

The Council of Bishops calls upon President Trump at a scheduled Monday press availability, to categorically denounce white supremacist, nationalist and the Ku Klux Klan that threatened to divide our nation. The Council wants to make it clear that he does not want or seeks their support. This would help unite and assure the nation that our president, embraces all the citizens of the United States.

The African Methodist Episcopal Church reaffirms our opposition to hate crimes, racism and anti–Semitism, and calls upon the nation, particularly our national leadership to condemn racism and hatred.